The journey inward…

The journey inward…

The journey inward is one that requires courage and vulnerability and certainly in the context of a leadership space, is an essential one. When you make the shift from viewing the world from a separate, ‘you and me as individuals’ perspective and see you and your team or communities as an integrated whole, you realise the absolute necessity of understanding yourself.

You see that by knowing what runs inside you and determines how you show up (or don’t!) in your life, you have the key to seeing why you experience what you do on the outside. “As within, so without” which in simple terms means whatever you are thinking about both consciously and subconsciously will be brought about into your reality.

The courageousness and inevitable feelings of vulnerability are key components of this journey and in fact if they are absent, I invite you to to look at whether what end result you are going for is really all that important to you. An authentic leader learns not to avoid vulnerability and actually learns to actively work on ‘the edge’ in a comfortably uncomfortable place, knowing that’s where ‘the juice’ lies, where evolution occurs rather than stagnation.

A popular talk by Ms Brene Brown at TED.com shows the power found in true vulnerabilty around understanding yourself and is well worth viewing.

Through my experience in choosing this style of leadership, I have found that my authentic style, unique to me, naturally emerges and shines through. The requirement to measure myself against others and compare my way of leading loses relevance. The urgent need to prove that I’m anything other than I am disappears and I turn up making decisions and choices that have clarity and certainty.

Leadership and Conflict….

Leadership and Conflict….

My Or Your Way Signpost Showing Conflict Or DisagreementWhen I was invited to share my feeling on this months newsletter topic of Leadership and Conflict, I was tempted to keep it very simple and to the point and that was to say the answer to staying in your leadership when experiencing conflict, is to be present. It is the simple answer and the only way in which you can be powerful in your leadership and stay true to yourself and at the same time support and guide others to evolve and grow in their own personal leadership.

Simple? yes, easy? not always! When you are in a position that requires you to ignite or encourage conflict, it requires you to be very clear and grounded in who you really are, which is OK, valuable, worthy of love and perfect just as you are, right here and now. WHAAAAAAT?! I hear you cry! Yes thats the truth of who you are , even though you may not feel like it all the time. And the kicker is, so is the other person who is part of the conflict! This is a vital distinction to get when becoming more and more courageous in your leadership. Who you truly are and what you DO are different. We have created a world where we mix those two up and make judgements about ourselves and others by linking our actions to the value and worth of us as human beings. In other words, we take things personally and that leads to confrontation, defending our position and attack or shrinking away from opportunity. (The good old fight or flight response.)
The breaking of the habit of taking things personally needs consistency and discipline around reminding ourselves of who we truly are and the only place where we can find that truth is in the present moment. Its where you will have whatever wisdom, words, actions necessary to respond constructively. This is what I call developing your emotional resilience through being present and in that we grow our capacity to manage and engage with conflict, in the moment wherever it arises.
When you are fully present and taking full personal responsibility for the way you are turning up and choosing to be, then you will be courageously leading the way for others in your company to do so. Try it out and see. If you are somehow waiting for someone around you to change, step up or be different in any way to how they are turning up, (and perhaps this is what is causing the conflict in the first place), YOUturn up differently FIRST. Be consistent and authentic in that space and watch what happens. Either the conflict will shift and no longer be an issue – the conflict details will be the same but you will have a whole new creative way of looking at it which will lead to it no longer causing you an issue – or the person with whom you have the conflict will simply leave.
So as an overview for simplicity:
  • Be present – be in the here and now no matter what conflict is there.
  • Don’t take things personally! STOP as soon as you realise you are because it will activate your fight or flight response which is fear-based and leads to more unnecessary conflict.
  • Remember that who you are is OK, valuable, worthy of love and perfect just as you are, right here and now, regardless of how you may feel or think about that.
  • Your behaviours, or what you do can be a bit dubious from time to time but its still not WHO YOU ARE. It’s important that we remember that we are only ever doing the best that we are able to do with the awareness that we have in that moment. And that goes for the the other or others too! Being present means you will be more aware and able to choose effectively.
  • Take responsibility for who you are BEing and as Mahatma Gandhi was rumoured to have said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
Leading Constructively in Tough Times…

Leading Constructively in Tough Times…

When I view the business world and in particular the leaders of business I find that , like in life generally, people allow themselves to be led by their emotions. Now for most, that’s not particularly revelatory or indeed rocket science but what it means when it comes to leading constructively in tough times is that a courageous leader would be equipped with the ability to be emotionally resilient. (Note RESILIENT not RESISTANT). Which means that they would be able to fully experience the emotions moving through them that are sparked by what is going on around them but are plugged into a deeper, more grounded and still place inside which is un-shakeable. There’s a recognition that there is no point in avoiding the natural death and resurrection cycle of life within business and by being meta to the surface reality of what is going on, it gives you a leadership edge.

One of my favourite quotes is:
“peace. it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. it means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart” unknown
What this says to me is that you can have all kinds of challenging situations and tough decisions, people and pressure going on around you but you are peaceful BECAUSE you are certain inside. Certainty inside is a process of remembering rather than a learning of new tools or strategies and can often be experienced as a peeling off of behaviours and beliefs long held to courageously open up to new perspectives and ideas. It’s an ability to KNOW that no matter how tough a situation appears, that everything changes and “this too shall pass”. If you as a leader allow yourself to forget that there is always a bigger picture going on and get stuck in problem solving, you are likely to use a lot of energy up wastefully and always be ‘managing’ a situation rather than transforming it. This certainty is magnetic and absolutely brings about a calmness amongst the chaos. It is always the energy of who you are being that affects what is going on around you.
A simple reminder to self when things are tough:
  • Do whatever it takes for you to create space and get out of the reactive environment if needs be in order to get back into the observer of the situation rather than the subject.
  • Remind yourself that ‘this too shall pass’ much like the seasons in nature and there is always a bigger picture context going on which will become clear in the fullness of time.
  • If you as a leader can be in a grounded and certain place authentically, you will enable your team to also be there. Don’t expect others to turn up in ways that you aren’t doing yourself.
  • Instead of berating the challenge on your plate, no matter how hard, be courageous and ponder on how the situation is providing an opportunity. This may be hard when all you can see is cost but you can do it anyway and get used to staying in that open minded position.
This is why I love what I do as a coach and intuitive mentor and why I have a mentor myself. Its invaluable as a leader to have a time put aside to be supported to stay real, open and vulnerable whilst at the same time, building emotional resilience and be reminded of the bigger picture, or context of what is going on. That way, you will experience the inherent ‘tough times’ of business life with more ease and flow, certainty and clarity.
The courage to follow your feeling, not your thinking…

The courage to follow your feeling, not your thinking…

It’s easy to have your head convince you of separateness when you don’t have a practice of being present. The thoughts and emotions can take you over and convince you in an instant.

I’ve noticed this happening for many people particularly in the past couple of weeks where the tendency to buy into the story of fear and judgment has been strong. I feel a link between that and the increased amount of fearful media and spreading of propaganda which stirs up the primal fight or flight response in many.

Stepping out of the story and being selective about what you listen to and surround yourself with goes part of the way in building your resilience but also a practice of mindfulness and stillness is invaluable.

The more there is a critical mass of people choosing to drop out of their heads and into their feeling, the more we will be following what is true for us rather than following the pied piper blindly.

#courage #buyingintofear #presence

The Power of Now

The Power of Now

“The truth is that the only power there is, is contained within this moment: It is the power of your presence. Once you know that, you also realize that you are responsible for your inner space now- nobody else is- and that the past cannot prevail against the power of the Now.” Eckhart Tolle